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DRIVING; Ask Not What You Can Do for a Buick

GARY WEINER, a Louisiana political consultant, was frustrated. For several months he had been trying to persuade a client, Page McClendon, a candidate for a seat on a state appeals court, to jettison her Lexus for something less flashy and closer to her bayou roots, like a Ford Taurus or a sport utility vehicle. But Ms. McClendon had stubbornly resisted.

Then, Mr. Weiner said in a recent interview, she heard it from a voter. At a political rally last summer, a middle-aged plumber told her matter-of-factly that people might be turned off by such a fancy foreign car. Wasn't she risking a loss? The candidate was shaken. She garaged her Lexus and leased a Ford Explorer. And she went on to win the election on Oct. 5, defeating the incumbent.

Although no one would suggest that she owes it all to the Explorer, consultants agree that in the end, politicians often are what they drive.

''I have worked with a number of wealthy candidates who want to drive their Jaguars, Mercedeses, whatever,'' Mr. Weiner said. ''But when the campaign starts, I cannot allow them to do that. Voters don't necessarily resent candidates who are wealthy, but what they won't tolerate is a display of wealth during a campaign.''

In a country dominated by the car culture of suburbia, cultivating the image of a man or woman of the people, whether Democrat or Republican, involves more than crew-neck shirts and folksy nicknames. As candidates have made the rounds of factories and centers for the elderly this campaign season, most have been acutely aware of what they were driving. The basic rule is: don't drive anything too different from what you're seeing in the shopping mall parking lots you pass by.

''Most of my candidates drive S.U.V.'s, whether they're in local or national races,'' said Sandy Kaplan, another Louisiana political consultant. ''The other day I was talking to a mayor whose campaign I'm handling. He drives a pickup truck. He said, 'Kaplan, I'm paying you way too much -- you're driving a Mercedes and I'm driving a truck.' And I replied, 'Well, you won't get re-elected driving a Mercedes.' '' Telling voters that you feel their pain from behind the wheel of a Mercedes is less than credible, Mr. Kaplan said.

One car that communicates pain-sharing is the 1988 Plymouth Sundance that Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Colorado Republican, drives around Washington. He co-signed a car loan for his daughter's boyfriend (they have since broken up), and when the young man fell behind on the payments, the senator inherited the car. The windshield is cracked, a side window tends to fall off when he tries to roll it down, and the tattered interiors are parched by years in the blazing Washington sun. There's a gaping hole in the dashboard. Someone stole the radio, the senator explained.

''When I drive up to the Senate, the police look at me a little strangely, and then they will try to straighten out my license plate that's all bent up,'' he said. ''Normally, I park the car on the street. It hasn't had a bath since I got it, but I think it's gray.''

Mr. Campbell is a millionaire several times over and could easily afford to replace the Sundance -- not to mention its broken or missing parts. But he shrugs at the thought. ''The idea that because you're a senator you have to show up in a big black Town Car -- that's not for me,'' he said. ''If you drove a car like that where I came from, people would laugh at you.''

John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, is another senator with plenty of financial resources, but his Washington car is a Dodge ES convertible he first took to the Senate in 1985, when it was new. It has a book value of $925, but he says he has a sentimental attachment: ''It's hard to part with.''

Another kindred spirit is Representative Gene Green of Texas. He leases a Chevrolet Impala for day trips around his Houston district and also drives a 2002 Chevrolet Blazer that he says ''relates very well with my constituents,'' but he tools around Washington in a 1992 Pontiac Grand Am with perpetual muffler problems. Some of his staff members call it the Red Flame. Cindy Jimenez, Mr. Green's former press secretary, said, ''It comes into the Congressional parking lot boom, boom, boom.''

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Leon Panetta, the chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, who now runs the Panetta Institute, a public policy center in Seaside, Calif., recalls a nerve-racking close encounter with a Rolls-Royce in his days as a California congressman. He was at a parade in San Juan Bautista when an aide arrived with a Rolls-Royce for him to ride in. (The car originally scheduled, a Pontiac, had broken down.) ''I said, 'I'm not getting in that car,' '' recalled Mr. Panetta, who in those days drove a pickup truck. '' 'The only way I'm going to ride in that car is on the front bumper.' The last thing that I wanted to be seen in was a Rolls-Royce.''

Another Californian, Jerry Brown, made a statement with a car when he succeeded Ronald Reagan in 1975 as governor. One of the first things Mr. Brown did was trade in Mr. Reagan's chauffeured limousine for a plain powder-blue Buick. ''It was Brown's way of saying that this is not the imperial governorship, this is a new era,'' said Bill Press, who was Mr. Brown's policy director and is now a co-host of ''Buchanan & Press'' on MSNBC. ''It was one of the best things he did in terms of telling people who he was and what he was all about.''

With the wave of consolidations among American, Asian and European carmakers in the last few years, the line between domestic and foreign has blurred, and imported cars are now a common sight in most parts of the country. Still, most politicians are wary of lingering anger about jobs lost to foreign competitors and prefer to be seen driving American. Alan Simpson, the retired Republican senator from Wyoming, observed this rule strictly in his Senate days. ''Whenever you came up for re-election your opponent would go into your driveway and find out if you're driving an American car, which, by God, you had better be doing,'' Mr. Simpson said in an interview this fall. ''If you have a Mercedes, hide it in an underground cavern in the mountains.''

There's also a regional angle to political car choices. The pickup truck, for example, is the vehicle of choice for many politicians in the South and West. (Of course, the most famous pickup truck in the United States today is the propane-driven white Ford F-250 that resides at President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex.)

Then there's the importance of staying true to one's desired image. In his Republican presidential bid in 1992, Pat Buchanan learned this the hard way when it surfaced that he drove a Mercedes (he had been running on a protectionist platform). On the other hand, Senator Fred Thompson, the Tennessee Republican, used a car to help build an image. In 1994, before his election to fill a vacant Senate seat, he campaigned in a red pickup, presumably to dispel his aura as a high-powered lawyer and Hollywood actor. With his drawl and hail-fellow-well-met charm, Mr. Thompson looked as if he belonged in the pickup truck.

HYBRID electric cars are serving a similar purpose -- in a different context -- for several members of Congress with environmentalist constituencies. Senator Robert Bennett, the Utah Republican, drives one, as do Representatives Brian Baird, a Washington Democrat; Darrell Issa, a California Republican; and Constance Morella and Roscoe G. Bartlett, both Maryland Republicans.

''The main thing is, don't be a hypocrite,'' said James Carville, the Democratic consultant. ''If you're a tobacco-spitting, Nascar-loving good old boy, then you shouldn't really be driving a Volvo, you know. I mean, try to not go too far out of type. If you're very green, an environmentalist, don't go drive a big gas-guzzling S.U.V.''

Charles Black, a longtime Republican strategist, recalls a delicate moment with Phil Gramm of Texas in his first Senate race in 1984. ''There was a mix-up about who was going to pick him up at the airport in Dallas one day, and it turned out that the staffer who rushed out to get him was driving a Subaru,'' Mr. Black said. Apparently, the notion of the candidate in a Subaru sent shivers down the campaign workers' collective spine.

''People back at campaign headquarters thought he would probably be upset that we had sent a foreign car, because of the conventional wisdom,'' Mr. Black said. ''When Gramm arrived, I asked him, 'How did you like that car?' and he said, 'What was that?' I said, 'Well, it was a Subaru.' And he said, 'Well, it was a nice car and I'm for free trade, so don't worry about it.' ''